Whether you are looking for your first job out of school, trying to find a new job in a new career field, or even contemplating the next step to continue your career path, you must evaluate the right opportunity to lead you to your goals. It is a decision process during which you should evaluate all of your options, weighing the benefits and sacrifices of each.

During these times, the right decision to reach your career goals may involve sacrificing pay, time with friends and family, and even leaving something you enjoy doing. Let’s face it, creating, maintaining, and expanding a successful career is a long-term journey, full of choices, sacrifices, and even some responsibilities that we do not necessarily enjoy. Yet, these sacrifices may often be necessary to progressing to your ultimate goal position and even the key to your personal freedom.

For example, there are several individuals who have invested the time and sacrificed the money to build an internet-based business. Although they spent years on a tight budget and missed many social events, their sacrifices have become the key to their freedom to take off on month-long vacations and live a comfortable lifestyle.

These sacrifices may not be as obvious to you, as you are admiring the “easy” life of that successful businessperson, yet each and every successful person has made short-term sacrifices in order to achieve long-term success. You can also achieve this freedom and success by creating a system to making short-term goals. The following expert tips are designed to guide you to developing your own system and remaining focused to achieve your long-term goals.

Dedicate your best effort to everything you do. When you are in the position to do work you do not enjoy or take on a role that is not what you were hoping for, push your self to achieve excellence in your actions. Thus, you will be focusing on your effort to achieve excellence rather than what you do not enjoy about the task at hand.

Break undesirable work up into small time slots. Schedule time throughout the day to achieve unwanted tasks, rather than spending an hour only doing things you do not enjoy. Some great times to get these thing accomplished are right before a lunch break and even the last 20 minutes of the workday as you will have something to look forward to.

Remain focused on the task at hand. Many of us waste countless hours re-checking our emails and surfing the web, making conscious decisions to procrastinate work that we should be completing. Recognize these procrastination techniques for what they are, your choice will allow you to take ownership of your actions. Therefore you will be then more equipped to make a conscious effort to eliminate the procrastination temptations that are deterring your success.

Concentrate on the long-term gains. Keep your focus on the bigger picture rather than the instant feelings you have about the work you are doing. This will not only give you reason and purpose to achieve your work, but also create a positive energy that will not only make work more enjoyable for you but also your colleagues.

If you are truly dedicated to reaching career success, you must dedicate yourself to the career journey to reaching our goals despite short-term sacrifices. By applying these tips to your work, you will soon achieve your career goals and may even enjoy every step of the journey to them.